Susan Wallack (Philadelphia, USA): "The Stranger"
Consider life's billion anxious
gulps of oxygen, smog porridge
sucked ad nauseam. If a wily
Camus invites us to agree
that Sisyphus is happy, I'm
satisfied to dream Camus'
Algeria: super-heated sands
hemming the Mediterranean,
and a raucous newborn
gleaming with slime, a just-plucked
shell held high into the sun. Her
nomad-father's rutted palms
obliterate all light, his desert-
dimmed eyes squinting to find
stripes, moles, stigma, signs—
imperfections to justify
a drowning. No surprise. Just too few
dried figs, no gods or fires
driving them forward, into the sea,
ancient terrors, shallow waters
heaving salt, fish, history.
originally published in The Brownstone Review No. 5
gulps of oxygen, smog porridge
sucked ad nauseam. If a wily
Camus invites us to agree
that Sisyphus is happy, I'm
satisfied to dream Camus'
Algeria: super-heated sands
hemming the Mediterranean,
and a raucous newborn
gleaming with slime, a just-plucked
shell held high into the sun. Her
nomad-father's rutted palms
obliterate all light, his desert-
dimmed eyes squinting to find
stripes, moles, stigma, signs—
imperfections to justify
a drowning. No surprise. Just too few
dried figs, no gods or fires
driving them forward, into the sea,
ancient terrors, shallow waters
heaving salt, fish, history.
originally published in The Brownstone Review No. 5
© Susan Wallack
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